There are two small pieces of evidence indicating clearly Goldsmith’s editorship. On January 29, 1768, he produced his “Good Natur’d Man,” and with his friends dined beforehand in gala fashion at an inn. Subject to extremes of humour, on this occasion he was most noisy, and he sang his favourite song, we are told, which was nothing more than “An old woman tossed in a blanket, seventeen times as high as the moon.” As it happens, this ditty is mentioned in the preface to Newbery’s collection of rhymes, without any more apparent reason than that it was a favourite with the editor, who wished to introduce it in some way, however irrelevant. Again, we are assured that Miss Hawkins once exclaimed, “I little thought what I should have to boast, when Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Jill, by two bits of paper on his fingers.”
Thus, though the tasks performed by Goldsmith for Newbery are generally accounted specimens of hack work, which he had to do in order to eke out a livelihood, there is satisfaction in claiming for him two immortal strokes, his tale of “Goody Two Shoes,” and his share in the establishment of the Mother Goose Melodies.[25] Many a time he was dependent upon the beneficence of his publisher, many a time rescued by him from the hands of the bailiff. The Newbery accounts are dotted with entries of various loans; even the proceeds of the first performances of the “Good Natur’d Man” were handed over to Newbery to satisfy one of his claims.
The notes accompanying the melodies, and which have no bearing upon the child-interest in the collection, show a wit that might very well belong to Goldsmith. He was perhaps amusing himself at the expense of his lexicographer friend, Johnson. For instance, to the jingle, “See saw, Margery Daw,” is appended this, taken seemingly from “Grotius”: “It is a mean and scandalous Practice in Authors to put Notes to Things that deserve no Notice.” And to the edifying and logical song, “I wou’d, if I cou’d, If I cou’dn’t, how cou’d I? I cou’dn’t, without I cou’d, cou’d I?” is attached the evident explanation from “Sanderson”: “This is a new Way of handling an old Argument, said to be invented by a famous Senator; but it has something in it of Gothick Construction.” Assuredly the names of those learned authors, “Mope,” credited with the “Geography of the Mind,” and “Huggleford,” writing on “Hunger,” were intended for ridicule.
By 1777, “Mother Goose” had passed into its seventh edition, but, though its success was largely assured, there are still to be noted rival publications. For instance, John Marshall,[26] who later became the publisher of Mrs. Trimmer’s works, issued some rhymes, conflicting with the book of Melodies which Carnan, Newbery’s stepson, had copyrighted in 1780, and had graced with a subtitle, “Sonnets for the Cradle.” During 1842, J. O. Halliwell edited for the Percy Society, “The Nursery Rhymes of England, collected principally from Oral Tradition,” and he mentioned an octavo volume printed in London, 1797, and containing some of our well-known verses. These it seems had been first collected by the scholar, Joseph Ritson,[27] and called “Gammer Gurton’s Garland.” The 1797 book was called “Infant Institutes,” semi-satirical in its general plan, and was ascribed to the Reverend Baptist Noel Turner, M.A.,[28] rector of Denton. If this was intended to supplant Newbery’s collection, it failed in its object. However, it is to be noted and emphasised that so varied did the editions become, that the fate of “Mother Goose” would not have been at all fortunate in the end, had not Monroe and Francis in Boston insisted upon the original collection as the authentic version, circa 1824. Its rights were thus established in America.
The melodies have a circuitous literary history. In roundabout fashion, the ditties have come out of the obscure past and have been fixed at various times by editors of zealous nature. For the folk-lore student, such investigation has its fascination; but the original rhymes are not all pure food for the nursery. In the course of time, the juvenile volumes have lost the jingles with a tang of common wit. They come to us now, gay with coloured print, rippling with merriment, with a rhythm that must be kept time to by a tap of the foot upon the floor or by some bodily motion. Claim for them, as you will, an educational value; they are the child’s first entrance into storyland; they train his ear, they awaken his mind, they develop his sense of play. It is a joyous garden of incongruity we are bequeathed in “Mother Goose.”
IV. John Newbery, Oliver Goldsmith, and Isaiah Thomas.
Wherever you wander in the land of children’s books, ramifications, with the vein of hidden gold, invite investigation,—rich gold for the student and for the critic, but less so for the general reader. Yet upon the general reader a book’s immortality depends. No librarian, no historian, need be crowded out; there are points still to be settled, not in the mere dry discussion of dates, but in the estimates of individual effect. The development of children’s books is consecutive, carried forward because of social reasons; each name mentioned has a story of its own. Two publishers at the outset attract our regard; except for them, much would have been lost to English and American children.
As early as Elizabeth’s time, Rafe Newberie, Master of Stationer’s Company, published Hakluyt’s “Voyages.” From him, John Newbery (1713–1767) was descended. Given an ordinary schooling, he was apprenticed to the printer, William Carnan, who, dying in 1737, divided his worldly goods between his brother Charles, and his assistant John. The latter, in order to cement his claim still further, married his employer’s widow, by whom he had three children, Francis, his successor in the publishing business, being born on July 6, 1743.
Newbery was endowed with much common sense. He travelled somewhat extensively before settling in London, and, during his wanderings, he jotted down rough notes, relating especially to his future book trade; the remarks are worthy of a keen critic. During this time it is hard to keep Newbery, the publisher, quite free from the picturesque career of Newbery, the druggist; on the one hand Goldsmith might call him “the philanthropic publisher of St. Paul’s Churchyard,” as he did in the “Vicar of Wakefield,” which was first printed by Newbery and Benjamin Collins, of Salisbury; on the other hand, in 1743, one might just as well have praised him for the efficacy of the pills and powders he bartered. Now we find him a shopkeeper, catering to the captains of ships from his warehouse, and adding every new concoction to his stock of homeopathic deceptions. Even Goldsmith could not refrain from having a slap at his friend in “Quacks Ridiculed.”
He made money, however, and he associated with a literary set among whom gold was much coveted and universally scarce. The portly Dr. Johnson ofttimes borrowed a much-needed guinea, an unfortunate privilege, for he had a habit of never working so long as he could feel money in his pocket. This generosity on the part of Newbery did not deter Johnson from showing his disapproval over many of the former’s publications. We can well imagine the implied sarcasm in his declaration that Newbery was an extraordinary man, “for I know not whether he has read, or written most books.” Between 1744 and 1802, records indicate that Newbery and his successors printed some three hundred volumes, two hundred of which were juvenile; small wonder he needed the editorial assistance of such persons as Dr. Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith.